How I choose eco-friendly food
If you want to be green and ethical, there are so many factors to consider when you’re buying food. I used to struggle a bit to juggle all the different eco-friendly choices, but last weekend I noticed that I’d settled into a bit of a pattern. I figured I’d share it with you to see what you think:
When shopping for food, I choose based on these priorities:
- Produced in my state. If I can’t find anything produced in my state, I look for…
- Fair Trade, which mostly means coffee and chocolate! If no Fair Trade is available, I look for…
- Made in Australia. But usually there’s lots of these, so to decide between them I look for…
- Organic products. If there aren’t any, I choose…
- The product with the least packaging, or the most easily recyclable packaging.
It’s working out reasonably well for me so far, by reducing the amount of time I spend standing in the aisles looking at labels.
If I can find local, organic produce that’s got no packaging at all, I do a little dance of joy. Mostly that happens at farmers’ markets rather than supermarkets!
The Fair Trade element is interesting: there are some foods that just don’t grow well in Australia, but I want to be sure that the workers still get paid well and treated right. Coffee and chocolate need tropical weather (humid heat) and have plenty of Fair Trade choices. But I’d be happy to buy Fair Trade rice or anything, really, that needs lots of water to grow.
How about you? Would this priority order work for you, or do you have a different way of doing it?
2 Comments
Want to know when this site has a new post? Just choose one of the links below to receive an email notification or add Go Greener to your feed reader.
Subscribe by Email
Subscribe in a reader
It’s hard to get the balance right between easy enough to remember and understand so you actually get it together to do it (and enjoy doing it!), and complex enough to take into account all the factors! I swear by gardening as making a huge difference, even if it’s just herbs and greens. And then to your list, I’d add, when I eat red meat, kangaroo is first choice, and I bother researching seafood, difficult though it is.
Oh see, I completely forgot about meat when I was writing this! But yes, I should add kangaroo and free-range into this list.
I’ll be honest: I’ve nearly given up on seafood due to the difficulty of doing the research. I’ve memorised one or two types that I know are ok, but beyond that I just don’t bother anymore. The fishing industry needs to sort itself out with a 21st century sustainable management system.